Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I think the primary issue for the democratic left in the U.S., and for DSA, is support for a non intervention policy by our own government. Many parts of the left have a tragic history of supporting this movement or that from afar. Usually we do not know the situation on the ground and the complexity of movements and struggles. We should – usually- not be picking from among competing factions. This applies to Venezuela, to Brazil, to Peru, Chile, Mexico, etc.Now, we can read about and inform ourselves but the real question is how do we support non-intervention. As in Non Intervention in Chile .Clearly we have learned since the invasion of the Dominican Republic, and since Chile (1973) that intervention comes in several forms. At times there are direct military interventions by U.S. forces. At times proxy forces are created ( Nicaraguan Contras, Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads. )And, most often the intervention is by the IMF, the World Bank, and other agencies which the U.S. is very capable of steering in one direction. For a long time in Latin America the intervention was aided and abetted by AIFLD, and we need to keep an eye on current foreign policy implements of our labor movement. There were resolutions on this at the last AFL-CIO convention.

In the case of Venezuela and the non renewal of the T.V. licenses. Since private, oligarchic capital controls 95% of the air waves, having the government take over 30% of the air waves seems like a reasonable act. I would be worried if they took over 70%. Creating a new labor federation to compete with the old corrupt labor federation seems like a reasonable act. It will of course be important to see if the new federation is democratic.

There is much to learn here. Listening to the voices on the ground is important.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Which Side Are You On? By David Bacon t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Monday 29 January 2007

Oakland, California - Of all the supporters of corporate immigration reform, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff is the most honest. The day of the notorious raids at the Swift and Company meatpacking plants, he told the media the raids would show Congress the need for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program." Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program."

Chertoff is hardly the only voice in DC using raids to justify guest guest worker programs. Cecilia Mu-oz, head of National Council of La Raza (NCLR), is another. Those deported in December were among the millions of undocumented workers who came after Congress passed the last immigration amnesty in 1986. Since legislators at the time didn't consider people who would come in following years, "perhaps the most tragic consequences are the terrible human costs of workplace raids," she mourns. New guest worker programs will give future migrants legal status, she claims, and protect them from the migra.

The raids do cause terrible suffering. But Mu-oz and other Washington insiders actually supported bills last year that mandate the same worksite enforcement Chertoff carries out today. More raids were a price they were willing to pay (or that others would pay) for the guest worker programs they wanted.

Today, many Congressional leaders - Democrats and Republicans - want to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the US and put them to work here on temporary visas. Labor schemes like this have a long history. From 1942 to 1964, the bracero program recruited temporary immigrants. They were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country to drive down wages. Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Galarza and Bert Corona all campaigned to get the program repealed.

Advocates of today's programs do everything they can to avoid association with the bitter "bracero" label. They used "guest worker" until that name also developed an ill repute. Now they prefer other euphemisms - "essential workers," or just "new workers."

We don't live in a magical world, however. You can't clean up an unpleasant reality by renaming it.

Current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand rights. Anyone who makes trouble doesn't get rehired to work in the US again. Public interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back wages for cheated immigrants. The Department of Labor almost never decertifies a contractor for this abuse.

Guest workers labor under the employer's thumb. Standing up for a union or minimum wage is risky. Under current programs, and in the new Congressional proposals, if workers lose their jobs they must leave, making deportation a punishment for being unemployed. No one gets unemployment insurance, disability or workers' compensation payments. Companies save money and avoid bad publicity by sending injured workers back home, where healthcare is virtually unavailable.

But Mu-oz and others argue that Congress can allow guest workers to go to court. Our legal system is such a poor protector of workers' rights today, however, that in 30 percent of all organizing drives, workers (both citizens and immigrants) are illegally fired, with virtually no remedies or penalties on employers. Arguing that lawyers can protect immigrants on temporary work visas is preposterous.

These problems aren't aberrations, curable with legal fine print.

By their nature, guest worker programs are low-wage schemes, intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers, at a price they want to pay. Companies don't recruit guest workers so they can pay them more, but to pay them less.

According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program, but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers. "We don't want the government setting wages," he says. "The market determines wages."

Major Senate sponsors of guest worker bills don't believe the government should even set a minimum wage for anyone, immigrant or citizen. John McCain, John Cornyn, James Kyl, Larry Craig and Chuck Hegel all just voted for an amendment to repeal the federal minimum wage entirely. Making them responsible for guest worker wages is putting the fox in charge of the chickens.

And it's not just wages. The schemes create a second tier of workers with fewer rights and less job security. They have none of the social benefits US workers won in the New Deal - retirement, unemployment and disability insurance. Instead of including new immigrants in these and other social programs, giving them legal residence and rights, Congress would create a huge workforce without them. Corporations that have pushed for eliminating these standards for everyone would be halfway there.

That's why workers, unions and community organizations have opposed guest worker programs, but also why corporations want them. Starting in the late 1990s, companies organized a shadowy lobby group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) which today encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Association of Builders and Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional cover.

The corporate lobby made other inroads as well. John Gay, who heads the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, is now board chair of the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington player. NCLR's list of corporate sponsors includes Wal-Mart and 14 other multinationals. Even two unions, the Service Employees and UNITE HERE, supported the Senate guest worker compromise last year.

The question Congress is deciding isn't "what can stop immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living outside their countries of origin, nothing can. Migration begins when people are displaced. In the countries that are the main sources of migration to the US, most migration is caused by economic dislocation - people can no longer survive as farmers or workers. Other migrants fled the wars that raged in Central America.

NAFTA, CAFTA, and US-sponsored economic reforms, along with US military intervention, uprooted millions of people, leaving them little option other than coming north. Corporations like Wal-Mart and Marriott wrote US trade policy to improve their investment opportunities abroad. Now they also want guest worker programs to channel people displaced by those policies into their US operations. Often those leaving home are among the most skilled and educated. Their departure makes it even harder for their countries to progress.

This flow of forced migration may not stop in the near future, but changing pro-corporate trade policies would reduce the pressure on people to leave home. Unsurprisingly, that's not on EWIC's agenda.

The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people once they're here. Other proposals, from outside the Beltway, would give immigrants far greater rights and much more equality than guest worker programs. Congress could, for instance,

Give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the chance to come and go - to work, study, or take care of family members in the US or in their home country. They can't be deported if they lose a job.Expand the number of green cards available for new migrants, opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through family networks. Making family reunification easier would help them and strengthen communities.Allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after they've been here a few years. The US wouldn't develop the huge undocumented population it has today.Stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.Prohibit companies from recruiting outside the US. They can always hire immigrants with green cards here, and green card holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher wages. It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program. That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants in Washington must choose whose side they're really on.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Union leaders are fundamentally divided over how to best tackle immigration reform as they wrestle with how to convert illegal immigrants from job threats to dues-paying members. The split reflects long-standing questions over the place of undocumented immigrants in the labor movement.One side supports a guest-worker program, which could permit hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter the country annually depending on the needs of U.S. businesses. The other side says such programs encourage employers to pay less, exploit immigrant workers and drive down working conditions for everyone.The Service Employees International Union, with many immigrants among its 1.8 million members, backs the guest-worker idea, leading it to an unusual labor-business alliance with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.The AFL-CIO, a federation of 54 unions, calls guest-worker programs exploitative and wants immigrants who enter the country to do so as permanent residents, not temporary workers.Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of SEIU, which broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005 over strategic differences, said his union recognizes "the reality of the marketplace and the economy." A guest-worker program could give immigrant workers the right to unionize and eventually petition for citizenship, he said.Immigration reform, which congressional leaders and President Bush have called a priority, has wide implications throughout the U.S. labor movement. Last year, the Senate proposed a guest-worker program that would have made immigrants temporary residents and employers responsible for requesting their green cards.Unions universally opposed that proposal and are trying to shape a plan to their liking, but their divided voices could dilute their message.Immigrants are the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. workforce and organizing them has been a priority for unions as they shift from a message of "protect American jobs.""It's a sea change from the early 1990s when immigrant labor was viewed by many as the enemy of organized labor," said Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "Now labor recognizes the reality of 12 million undocumented people in this country and the complexity of how to regularize that."When thousands of immigrants marched on the National Mall last year, many of the organizers were union leaders. The spokesman for the Washington region's immigrant coalition was also the leader of a SEIU local. AFL-CIO leaders also stood with immigrant activists at marches, and last year they formed an alliance with a national group of day-laborer centers.For some, guest-worker programs awaken memories of the government-sanctioned -- and flawed -- Bracero Program that operated from 1942 to 1964. It locked immigrants, mostly Mexican men, into English-language contracts that they could not understand and made them beholden to farm bosses. At the end of their contracts, under which they picked sugar beets, cotton and other crops for long hours and low pay, the immigrants were deported.Ana Avendaño, the AFL-CIO's associate general counsel, called today's guest-worker programs, which tie immigrant workers' visas to their U.S. employers, "modern-day Bracero Programs.""The bells and whistles they are currently adding to the temporary workers programs are bound to fail, they have been proven to fail," she said.Medina said the SEIU advocates a guest-worker program with visas that would let workers change jobs, join unions and petition for permanent residency."Workers that come here would have full protections of our labor rights, including the right to organize, and they would have an independent method of enforcing those rights," Medina said.SEIU's support of a revamped guest-worker program reflects a desire to create politically tenable immigration reform. Bush has said that his support of immigration reform hangs on the inclusion of a temporary-worker provision."Immigrants really want something. There's such desperation for some resolution of this mess," said Ruth Milkman, a professor of industrial sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles.But SEIU's temporary-worker proposal is nothing like the president's plan to connect "willing employers with willing workers" or the guest-worker provisions floated in Congress, which would not give workers the right to independently petition for permanent residency.Finding middle ground could be tough. Broad support is needed to change immigration laws, said proponents of increased immigration, who have been pushing to rewrite the laws for years."As the process goes along, I think there's a framework for the labor movement to come together," Medina said. "It won't be an easy process, but it can happen."

Monday, January 22, 2007

In Guatemala, Pedro Zamora, general secretary of theDockworkers Union (STEPQ), was gunned down Monday byunknown assailants who used methods reminiscent ofthose by paramilitary forces during Guatemala's 36-yearcivil war.

Zamora had been leading efforts to stop privatizationof the country's major port of Quetzal and wasdemanding decent working conditions for dockworkers. Healso stood with workers when they were locked out oftheir workplace and when the military took over theports.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a letter toSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice, described whatwitnesses say happened to Zamora:

On his way to pick up his children from an appointmentat the health center located in the Port of Quetzalgrounds, Mr. Zamora was gunned down.... His killers firedover 100 shots, 20 of which hit him, and fired onefinal shot to the face to further degrade andunderscore the message of his murder. Mr. Zamora'sthree-year-old son was seriously injured in the attack.

It is unacceptable that as our countries grow closerand closer in trade and immigration that Guatemalanswho have taken on the honorable responsibility ofrepresenting their co-workers in what should be civil,peaceful labor-management negotiations, should fallvictim to brutal acts of violence at their workplace.Achieving justice in the murder of Mr. Zamorarepresents one small step in the path toward theprimacy of rule of law over impunity and toward thesupport of real democracy in Guatemala.

Guatemala is one of the nations that signed theDominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement(DR-CAFTA). Its growing textile industry is well-knownfor its sweatshop working conditions and lack ofworkers' rights.

Over the last year, we worked with Pedro Zamora and hisunion to ensure that the rights of dockworkers areprotected under international conventions andGuatemalan labor law. We mourn his loss, and we condemnhis murder.

Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International TradeUnion Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168million workers in 153 countries and territories, saysZamora's murder

was planned and premeditated, and appears designed tosend a message to those who dare to stand up forfundamental rights.

The International Transport Federation (ITF) alsoexpressed outrage over Zamora's murder. David Cockroft,ITF's general secretary, said:

This is an outrage, pure and simple. It could not havebeen a more dirty and cowardly attack. It's a filthylittle act that makes the blood of any decent personboil. The Guatemalan government will never be forgivenif it doesn't investigate and then bring the murderersto justice.

The ITF protested in October to the Guatemalangovernment and the United Nations' International LaborOrganization that Zamora was being followed in responseto his role in defending workers' jobs at Quetzal.

Click here to take action to demand a fullinvestigation of Zamora's murder and that his killersbe brought to justice.

The ITUC also condemned the killing of at least threecivilians, the wounding of many others and thedetention of several top union leaders in the WestAfrican country of Guinea. The country's securityforces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration Jan. 10.Guinea's national trade unions organized the strike toput pressure on Guinean President Lansana Conte toimprove the country's faltering economy and otherissues.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, militia groups Jan. 16 killedMohammed Hameed, an organizer for the Federation ofWorkers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Hameedwas among a group of 15 civilians randomly gunned downin an open marketplace in southern Baghdad. Hameed wasout on a walk when he was caught in the gunfire.

A second incident occurred five days earlier, whenmilitia gunmen abducted eight engineers of the IraqiOil Ministry as they were traveling in a vehicle to aFWCUI press conference on fuel price increases. Four ofthe kidnapped victims, all union members, werereleased. One was later found dead, after beingtortured. The other three still are missing.

Falah Alwan, president of FWCUI, says he isdisappointed with the response from the government andthe lack of information on these heinous crimes.

The Iraqi government must take responsibility for thelawlessness that has become so prevalent in the oilindustry, as well as for the obvious securitydeficiencies that has allowed ordinary workers to bekilled every day.

The Brussels-based International Federation ofChemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions,which represents 20 million workers worldwide, calledon the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fully investigate the abductions and killingsof the engineers and to make serious efforts toapprehend the drive-by gunmen responsible for therandom shootings that took Hameed's life.

In December, Abdullah Muhsin, the internationalrepresentative of the General Federation of IraqiWorkers (GFIW), told a group at AFL-CIO headquartersthat Iraqi workers are caught in the crossfire betweenthe insurgents and Iraqi and U.S. soldiers.

Iraq's workers and the union movement are under attackby forces sowing chaos in the country, he said. Everyday, thousands of workers desperate for jobs risk theirlives in war-torn Iraq to feed their families and ekeout a living. Muhsin said:

People are lining up to go to work, and a crazy suicidebomber comes into the crowd, and they all die. Thesepeople are not supporting any cause, any religion, anypolitical agenda. They're just trying to make a living.

Muhsin says many people are afraid to go out of theirhomes for fear of being killed, but they have nochoice. They must go out and find work or go to themarket.

Muhsin and Alan Johnson are co-authors of Hadi NeverDied: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, a bookabout the life of the prominent Iraqi union leader whowas brutally tortured and murdered in January 2005 byenemies of democracy in Iraq. <8>

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Some 66 left wing delegations from thirty differentcountries, mainly Latinamerica are currently meeting inSan Salvador in the framework of the Sao Paulo Forum,to celebrate and assess the advance last year ofelected left wing governments in the region, ashappened in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela.Medardo Gonzalez who is hosting the forum as leader ofSalvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front,FMLN, recalled the circumstances when the forum firststarted fifteen years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall,the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba's dramatic financialcrisis and the Nicaraguan revolution defeated by theballot.

'We were on the defensive and neo-liberalism on fulloffensive. Some said it was the end of history', saidNidia Diaz another FMLN leader: However today 'thedefeat of neo-liberalism is evident and several of theforum's members are in government, Lula da Silva(Brazil); Hugo Chavez (Venezuela); Evo Morales(Bolivia), in Cuba the revolution survived and isstronger, and regionally social movements havestrengthened'.

Gonzalez even recalls that back in 1996 the Sao Pauloforum was against admitting Chavez as a member becauseof his 'military coups' background, but today 'he's afundamental pillar' of the regional left and isdeveloping in Venezuela 'one of the most originalprocesses in Latinamerica'.

He also praised the creation by Venezuela and Cuba ofthe ALBA (dawn) initiative, which stands for BolivarianAlternative for the Americas and is the counterproposal for the United States 'imperial project' of aFree Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA. So far ALBA'smembers are Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.Gonzalez revealed that the final document of the forumwill emphasize the need to strengthen democraticprocesses, 'beyond electoral participation'; promotegovernment policies and structural reforms to defeatpoverty (60% of Latin-Americans are catalogued as poor)and create an alternative economic project to neo-liberalism, which defends national sovereignties andpromotes economic, political and social cooperationamong the peoples of the region.

Alba Maldonado, a member of Guatemala's Congress andformer guerrilla is optimistic about the future sincein the coming general elections this year in hercountry, the leading candidate according to opinionpolls is Alvaro Colom, a Social-democrat with strongsupport among the indigenous population. If Colomfinally becomes Guatemala's president, only El Salvadorin Central America will still be ruled by 'aConservative, neo liberal'.

El Salvador's presidential election is scheduled for2009 and 'we are working hard to come up with a solidcandidate', said Gonzalez.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Brussels, 17 January 2007 (ITUC OnLine): The ITUC has condemned thebrutal killing on 15 January of Dockworkers' Union leader Pedro Zamorain an attack by a number of armed assassins. Zamora, General Secretaryof the STPEQ Union, had been leading efforts to stop the privatizationof the country's major port of Quetzal and he and fellow unionists hadbeen subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation. The unionis proposing a programme of upgrading and modernisation as analternative to placing the port facilities in private hands.

After picking up his children from a hospital appointment, Zamora's carwas followed and then rammed by a white pick-up truck, and then sprayedby gunfire from both sides of the vehicle. Of the more than 100 bulletswhich hit the car, around 20 hit Zamora. One of the killers then walkedup to his vehicle and shot him in the face, a method reminiscent of thatused by paramilitary forces during the country's civil war. DespiteZamora's efforts to protect his children during the attack, his3-year-old son was injured but his condition is believed to be stable.

The ITUC and the International Transport Workers Federation are takingthis latest case of anti-union repression in Guatemala to theInternational Labour Organisation, and calling on the Guatemalangovernment to ensure that a full investigation take place, to identifythe culprits and bring them to justice. Suspicions that the managementof the Port was involved should constitute one focus of theinvestigation.

"This gruesome killing recalls the darkest days of Guatemala's decadesof civil conflict, and the country's reputation will continue to sufferunless action is taken to root out and punish those who commission andperpetrate intimidation and murder", said ITUC General Secretary GuyRyder, adding "this murder was planned and premeditated, and appearsdesigned to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamentalrights".

The ITUC and ITF will be coordinating worldwide action to put pressureon the Guatemalan authorities to guarantee full respect for the rule oflaw and fundamental workers' rights, to ensure that all those involvedin the killing are punished and that the continuing culture of impunityis brought to an end.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

by Manning Marable; MR Zine; January 13, 2007Several weeks ago, with much media fanfare, the James Baker-Lee Hamilton Committee submitted to President George W. Bush its long-awaited, bipartisan report on the U.S. war in Iraq. On balance, the report provided Bush with a face-saving strategy for pulling out all U.S. combat forces by the beginning of 2008. The Baker-Hamilton report favors an increase of U.S. advisers being embedded inside Iraqi troops and direct negotiations with regional powers Iran and Syria.Bush, however, almost immediately distanced himself from key proposals in the Baker-Hamilton report. He now seems prepared to flagrantly flaunt his contempt for the majority of American voters, who purged both the Senate and House of their Republican majorities last November. Why does Bush defy public opinion by pursuing this unpopular war?

The answer lies not in America's need to "combat Islamic terrorism" but in the economic necessity for the United States to control international markets and valuable natural resources, such as petroleum. Bush's economic strategy is that of "neoliberalism" -- which advocates the dismantling of the welfare state, the abolition of redistributive social programs for the poor, and the elimination of governmental regulations on corporations.

In a recent issue of the New York Times (December 5, 2006), Professor Thomas B. Edsall of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism astutely characterized this reactionary process of neoliberal politics within the United States in these terms: "For a quarter-century, the Republican temper -- its reckless drive to jettison the social safety net; its support of violence in law enforcement and national defense; its advocacy of regressive taxation, environmental hazard and probusiness deregulation; its 'remoralizing' of the pursuit of wealth -- has been judged by many voters as essential to America's position in the world, producing more benefit than cost."

One of the consequences of this reactionary political and economic agenda, according to Edsall, was "the Reagan administration's arms race" during the 1980s, which "arguably drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy." A second consequence, Edsall argues, was America's disastrous military invasion of Iraq. "While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis," Edsall observes, "Bush multiplied America's enemies and endangered this nation's military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions."

What is significant about Edsall's analysis is that he does not explain away the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and current military occupation as a political "mistake" or an "error of judgment." Rather, he locates the rationale for the so-called "war on terrorism" within the context of U.S. domestic, neoliberal politics. "The embroilment in Iraq is not an aberration," Edsall observed. "It stems from core [Republican] party principles, equally evident on the domestic front."

The larger question of political economy, left unexplored by Edsall and most analysts, is the connection between American militarism abroad, neoliberalism, and trends in the global economy. As economists Paul Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and others noted decades ago, the general economic tendency of mature capitalism is toward stagnation. For decades in the United States and Western Europe, there has been a steady decline in investment in the productive economy, leading to a decline in industrial capacity and lower future growth.

Since the 1970s, U.S. corporations and financial institutions have relied primarily on debt to expand domestic economic growth. By 1985, total U.S. debt -- which is comprised of the debt owed by all households, governments (federal, state, and local), and all financial and non-financial businesses -- reached twice the size of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. By 2005, the total U.S. debt amounted to nearly "three and a half times the nation's GDP, and not far from the $44 trillion GDP for the entire world," according to Fred Magdoff.

As a result, mature U.S. corporations have been forced to export products and investment abroad, to take advantage of lower wages, weak or nonexistent environmental and safety standards, and so forth, to obtain higher profit margins. Today about 18 percent of total U.S. corporate profits come from direct overseas investment. Partially to protect these growing investments, the United States has pursued an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy across the globe. As of 2006, the U.S. maintained military bases in fifty-nine nations. The potential for deploying military forces in any part of the world is essential for both political and economic hegemony.

Thus the current Iraq War is not essentially a military blunder caused by a search for "weapons of mass destruction," but an imperialist effort to secure control of the world's second largest proven oil reserves; Bush also invaded Iraq because it was the first military step of the Bush administration's neoconservatives (such as Paul Wolfwitz, now head of the World Bank) to "remake the Middle East" by destroying the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Manning Marable is Professor Public Affairs, History, and African-American Studies at Columbia University, New York City. His column "Along the Color Line" appears in over 400 publications internationally and is available at www.manningmarable.net. This article was published in the Jackson Progressive, and it is republished here with kind permission of the author, who retains all rights. Manning has long been a supporter of our work.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

http://www.mapa-ca.org/MiscPages/StrategyTactics.pdfA detailed analysis of the efforts of the May 1 coalition last year, the current situation, and potentials for immigration reform. By Nativo Lopez of MAPA.Historical note;MAPA ( the Mexican American Political Association) was created to pressure the Democratic Party to pay attention to Mexican American issues. Currently MAPA and Nativo Lopez are working with the Green Party.

Topics include:Topics· How was the immigrant’s rights movement successful in defeating H.R.4437?· How the Democratic Party struck a compromise, and how the auxiliary organizations divided the movement?· THE GREAT AMERICAN BOYCOTT· A divided immigrant’s rights movement· TODAY WE MARCH, TOMORROW WE VOTE· REPUBLICAN THUMPING· THE STATE OF ARIZONA· Current state of the immigrant’s rights movement· The Catholic Church· The labor movement· The auxiliary organizations· The home-town associations· The U.S. business community· The local immigrant’s rights coalitions· The Spanish language media· The right-wing Minutemen· The national networks - Most of the local and regional coalitions have come together under the umbrella of two national networks - WE ARE AMERICA and the National Alliance for Immigrant’s Rights (NAIR)· The basic ten points of unity of NAIR· CURRENT POLITICAL CONDITIONS· STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE – IMMEDIATE LEGALIZATION· The balance between legalization and enforcement· The “guest-worker” program· “I want to be a bracero” or “Please sanction my employer”· STRATEGIC ALLIES· Other strategic considerations· The feminist movement· The environmental movement· The peace movement· The labor movement· Other tactical alliances· Progressive social movements· The Special Case of Mexico· The African American community· South Asian immigrant communities

WASHINGTON - President Bush's hopes of securing a comprehensive immigrationoverhaul have brightened considerably in the new Democratic-controlledCongress, but resistance from organized labor -- one of the Democratic Party'smost loyal constituencies -- could complicate those efforts.

The AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions with more than 9 million members, isratcheting up opposition to a temporary guest worker program, a key element ofBush's immigration plan. At the same time, two powerful unions in a breakawaylabor coalition, Change to Win, have tended to support the provision.

The divisions within labor were evident during the contentious debate overimmigration in the previous Republican-controlled Congress. But they take onheightened significance as Democrats assume control of the 110th Congress andbegin shaping the legislative agenda.

Labor political action committees contributed 86 percent of their donations toDemocratic candidates, a total of $42 million, according to the Center forResponsive Politics. Labor also aggressively waged get-out-the-vote efforts andother activities to help end 12 years of Republican control of Congress.

With its bolstered political clout, the AFL-CIO is better positioned to confronta powerful coalition of business groups that is pressing for a temporary workerprogram to bring in thousands of foreign workers each year.

"The industry will oppose a bill that doesn't have a good temporary workerprogram in it," said Randel Johnson, vice president of the U.S. Chamber ofCommerce.

But Johnson acknowledged that the AFL-CIO's heightened political stature in theaftermath of the elections raises the challenge for his side.

"In view of the election, it's very significant," he said. "Certainly, theAFL-CIO has a bigger seat at the table than they did before."

Business leaders say the guest worker program is needed to bring in foreignworkers to fill unskilled and low-skilled jobs Americans don't want. AFL-CIOofficials say the program is designed to give business a steady source of cheaplabor and would take jobs from U.S. citizens.

"We don't believe our elected representatives are ready to adopt legislationthat creates paths for corporations to import workers (and) reduce workingstandards in the United States," said Ana Avendando, associate general counselfor the AFL-CIO. "That's exactly what guest worker programs are."

Bush has made immigration one of his top domestic priorities since the outset ofhis presidency. But he was rebuffed by members of his own party whenconservative Republicans in the House of Representatives effectively bottled upa Senate-passed bill. The legislation, which had bipartisan support, included aguest worker program and a legalization plan to put millions of undocumentedworkers on a path to U.S. citizenship.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

South America: Toward an alternative futureNoam ChomskyFriday, January 5, 2007

Last month a coincidence of birth and death signaled a transition for South America and indeed for the world.

The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died even as leaders of South American nations concluded a two-day summit meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, hosted by President Evo Morales, at which the participants and the agenda represented the antithesis of Pinochet and his era.

In the Cochabamba Declaration, the presidents and envoys of 12 countries agreed to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union.

The declaration marks another stage toward regional integration in South America, 500 years after the European conquests. The subcontinent, from Venezuela to Argentina, may yet present an example to the world on how to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire and terror.

The United States has long dominated the region by two major methods: violence and economic strangulation. Quite generally, international affairs have more than a slight resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by a small storekeeper.

Previous attempts at independence have been crushed, partly because of a lack of regional cooperation. Without it, threats can be handled one by one. (Central America, unfortunately, has yet to shake the fear and destruction left over from decades of U.S.-backed terror, especially during the 1980s.)

To the United States, the real enemy has always been independent nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a "contagious example," to borrow Henry Kissinger's characterization of democratic socialism in Chile.

On Sept. 11, 1973,

Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.

The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 30,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime. Among the leaders at Cochabamba was the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet. Like Allende, she is a socialist and a physician. She also is a former exile and political prisoner. Her father was a general who died in prison after being tortured.

At Cochabamba, Morales and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela celebrated a new joint venture, a gas separation project in Bolivia. Such cooperation strengthens the region's role as a major player in global energy.

Venezuela is already the only Latin American member of OPEC, with by far the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East. Chávez envisions Petroamerica, an integrated energy system of the kind that China is trying to initiate in Asia.

The new Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, proposed a land-and-river trade link from the Brazilian Amazon rain forest to Ecuador's Pacific Coast — a South American equivalent of the Panama Canal.

Other promising developments include Telesur, a new pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela and an effort to break the Western media monopoly.

Integration is a prerequisite for genuine independence. The colonial history — Spain, Britain, other European powers, the United States — not only divided countries from one another but also left a sharp internal division within the countries, between a wealthy small elite and a mass of impoverished people.

The main economic controls in recent years have come from the International Monetary Fund, which is virtually a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department. But Argentina, Brazil and now Bolivia have moved to free themselves of IMF strictures.

Because of the new developments in South America, the United States has been forced to adjust policy. The governments that now have U.S. support — like Brazil under Lula — might well have been overthrown in the past, as was President João Goulart of Brazil in a U.S.-backed coup in 1964.

To maintain Washington's party line, though, it's necessary to finesse some of the facts. For example, when Lula was re- elected in October, one of his first acts was to fly to Caracas to support Chávez's electoral campaign. Also, Lula dedicated a Brazilian project in Venezuela, a bridge over the Orinoco River, and discussed other joint ventures.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Another grassroots groundswell that mattered was theimmigrants' rights marches of last spring, which werelaunched with the surprising turnout in Los Angeles --not the easiest city for walking and marching -- ofmore than a million Latinos and others defiant ofcrackdowns against immigrants. Similarly huge andpassionate demonstrations, many organized by textmessaging, Spanish-language radio, and other means,swept the nation. They demonstrated that immigrantswere not going to be so easy to bully; the force oftheir numbers and passion left Republican plans torepress and to demonize immigrants, undocumented andotherwise, in disarray. The marches were jubilant andpowerful, one of those no-going-back moments when agroup decides never to be a silent victim again. Theculminating marches on May Day were the first time inmany decades that the U.S. had adequately joined therest of the world in commemorating this worker'sholiday that commemorates the anniversary of theChicago labor march and rally in 1886.

Mexicans rose up in 2006, and the country seems to beon the brink of revolution, if citizen discontent isany measure. The city of Oaxaca was seized by itscitizens and for many months functioned as anautonomous zone akin to the Paris Commune of 1871,until violent repression in November. After the stolenpresidential election in the summer, millions ofMexicans took up residence in the streets of thecapital to protest the corruption and model analternative -- the huge occupation of the centralzocalo (or plaza) and surrounding area experimentedwith mass democracy meetings in the open air, whileAndres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Mexico-City mayor whoprobably actually won the election, set up a shadowgovernment. The Zapatistas, a dozen years after theirappearance on the world stage, continued to play a rolein Mexican politics.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Minnesotans heed call for solidarity with OaxacansBy Michael Moore29 December 2006ST. PAUL - The violent struggle in the Mexican state of Oaxaca – where the brutal repression of a striking teachers union last June sparked a series of demonstrations, uprisings and, eventually, partial federal occupation – inspires a wide range of emotions among the teachers’ supporters.\Primarily, however, there is uncertainty, and that, in turn, yields anxiety.

Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who ordered police to assault the striking teachers, has refused to step aside, though an estimated 1.5 million people have taken to the streets in support of his removal.

Indeed, Mexican Teachers Union (SNTE) Local 22 is not alone in protest of Ruiz’s rule. The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) formed shortly after the governor’s attack on the teachers, uniting them with representatives of the state’s regions and municipalities, its other unions and its non-governmental, social and cooperative groups.

The APPO began acting as a shadow government opposed to Ruiz’s, and it inspired enough support from Oaxacans to take control of the capital city’s central square, or zocalo, as well as the radio station at its university.

But on Oct. 31, after rumors of state-directed death squads and assinations made their way to the nation’s capital, Mexican President Vicente Fox ordered federal police and internal security agents to Oaxaca, with directions to recapture the zocalo. The raid was successful, but it resulted in warrantless arrests, beatings and disappearances.

Leo Garcia, an activist who returned from Oaxaca about a month ago, addressed the St. Paul Labor Speakers Club Nov. 27. He detailed 14 clashes between police and protestors at different points throughout the city.

“At some points the police began to shoot 9-millimeter guns into the crowd,” Garcia said. “Police squads fired on three youths, taking two of their bodies.”

For Garcia, anxiety has begun turning to despair.

“It’s kind of hard to see a social movement repressed into submission, which is what (the Mexican government) is trying to do,” he said. “Leaders are detained, there are warrants for others and people are in hiding.”

Garcia agreed with an organizer for the Minneapolis-based Resource Center of the Americas, Eduardo Cardenas, that renewed hope in Oaxaca depends on international interest.

“It seems that Oaxaca is in desperate need of international solidarity,” Garcia said. “Teachers unions and workers in different sectors need to step up.”

In St. Paul, public school teachers made solidarity with Oaxacan teachers a central theme of their union’s celebration honoring the anniversary of St. Paul teachers’ walkout 60 years ago. Still, demonstrations in front of the local Mexcian consulate here have been sparsely attended, according to Cardenas. Media coverage, meanwhile, has been almost non-existant.

That disappoints Cardenas, who still holds out hope – perhaps the most powerful of emotions – that the struggle begun by the Oaxacan teachers and carried on by the APPO will not be in vain.

“Beyond the teachers’ demands, this has larger implications,” Cardenas said. “Here’s a process being undertaken to create a democratic system where there has not been one.

“That’s very scary to a lot of people in Latin America who (fear) this could ecourage people to take on similar actions. But as scary as it is to people like Vicente Fox, it is inspiring for people in places like Colombia, who look at the people of Oaxaca as an example, creating a fair, more participatory society.”

Michael Moore edits the St. Paul Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org